• Nick Leeson, the notorious rogue trader who toppled Barings Bank: “Rogue trading is probably a daily occurrence within the financial markets. What shocked me was the size. I never believed it would get to this degree of loss.” - BBC

• Leeson empathises with Kerviel's plight: "It took me a long time to return to normal, to look at people I respected in the eye. It will, I predict, be a long time before Kerviel will be able to do the same." - The Daily Mail

• Colette Thomas, 79, a former neighbour: "He was very handsome. Pleasant, especially with my dog. He stroked her. Handsome, strong, muscular, very well dressed in a suit and tie. He looked very much like a banker." - The Guardian

• David Wyss, chief economist at Standard & Poor’s: “How much did the market decline in Europe have to do with unwinding those positions? It’s hard to know, without knowing the exact positions, but it certainly looks suspicious. It is probably not the sole cause but I am certainly not ruling it out as a factor.” - The Times

• Daniel Bouton, chief executive at Société Générale: “He’s not received a bonus this year, and probably won’t be asking for one.” - The Daily Mail

• Source at Société Générale: “He spent hours trying to explain his way out of this. He seems to have been some kind of Walter Mitty character who had managed to convince himself that he had come up with a great new trading strategy, and if he was given time it would make a lot of money for the bank.” - The Daily Telegraph

• Jean Pierre Mustier, head of investment banking at Société Générale: "Sometimes people don't know the size of what they are getting into." - The Guardian

• Phillipe Collas, at Société Générale's investment management division: "In December things were going very well for him, then he panicked, he gambled against the market...What was his motive? I don't know, maybe he wanted to prove himself." - The Guardian

• Gilles Glicenstein, chief executive at BNP Paribas Investment Partners: "There is still some information missing to understand what happened. Because the scale of the fraud is so large, there must be a complex explanation." - BBC

• Alain Crouzat, portfolio manager at Montsegur Finance:"We get the feeling that the financial markets have become a big casino which has lost control. It seems incredible that Société Générale can lose €5bn through one operator." - The Independent

• Banking source: “This will be the time we look back to and say, ‘This is when Société Générale lost its independence’.” – The Daily Telegraph

• Christian Noyer, governor of the Banque de France: "I am not worried about confidence. The proof is that Société Générale, even with such an unprecedented fraud - that was conducted with a sophistication also without precedence - can be repaired in three days and emerge stronger than before [due to the capital increase]."- The Financial Times